Australia’s promise to settle 12,000 refugees fleeing Syria and Iraq appears “hollow”, six of Australia’s leading humanitarian organisations have said, with just 3,500 arrivals since then prime minister Tony Abbott promised the new intake a year ago.

World Vision, Oxfam, Save the Children, Plan International, Care and Amnesty International have condemned Australia’s dilatory response to the Syrian crisis as “incomprehensible”, and called on the government to resettle all the promised 12,000 by the end of March 2017.